The Murderer Arrested by George Cattermole. 3 ⅝ x 4 ½ inches (9.2 cm by 11.7 cm). Framed, wood-engraved. Chapter LVI, Barnaby Rudge. 28 August 1841 in serial publication (fifty-third full-page plate in the series). Tailpiece for part 29 in the novel, serialised in Master Humphrey's Clock, Vol. III (part 72), 264. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Context of the Illustration: Geoffrey Haredale at last apprends his brother's killer
Again the ashes slipped and crumbled; some stones rolled down, and fell with a dull, heavy sound upon the ground below. He kept his eyes upon the piece of moonlight. The figure was coming on, for its shadow was already thrown upon the wall. Now it appeared — and now looked round at him — and now —
The horror-stricken clerk uttered a scream that pierced the air, and cried, "The ghost! The ghost!"
Long before the echo of his cry had died away, another form rushed out into the light, flung itself upon the foremost one, knelt down upon its breast, and clutched its throat with both hands.
"Villain!" cried Mr. Haredale, in a terrible voice — for it was he. "Dead and buried, as all men supposed through your infernal arts, but reserved by Heaven for this — at last — at last I have you. You, whose hands are red with my brother’s blood, and that of his faithful servant, shed to conceal your own atrocious guilt — You, Rudge, double murderer and monster, I arrest you in the name of God, who has delivered you into my hands. No. Though you had the strength of twenty men," he added, as the murderer writhed and struggled, "you could not escape me or loosen my grasp to-night!" [Chapter the Fifty-sixth, 264]
Old Rudge apprehended in the smoking ruins of The Warren
Fred Barnard's more sensational version of Haredale's apprehending the
murderer by the throat:
Set after the destruction of the Warren and the departure of the mob, the architectural scene of Geoffrey Haredale's apprehending of old Rudge for the twenty-year-old murder of his steward and his brother Reuben seems the anti-climax of his furious ride from London to Chigwell to rescue his niece and servants. The careful reader may even wonder as he or she studies the illustration what old Rudge was doing at the Warren, to which he had departed after learning the whereabouts of the mob from John Willet at The Maypole. Here, then, as in the previous illustration, Old John at a Disadvantage, is the mysterious, black-cloaked stranger; the publican, having recognized him, had told Haredale he had seen old Rudge's ghost. As in the text, here in the illustration, "The horror-stricken clerk utter[s] a scream that pierce[s] the air" (264). However, disregarding these responses to the shrouded figure, the stalwart owner of the Warren has correctly deduced with whom he is dealing in the turret of the old mansion. As Solomon Daisy looks upward from the ground far below, Haredale grasps the murderer by the collar. Behind them, white smoke still billows out of the ruins of the country house, lending a dramatic backdrop to the unfolding of poetic justice. But the illustration fails to suggest an answer to the question uppermost in the reader's mind: "Whatever has become of Emma Haredale, and her companion, Dolly Varden?"
Related Material including Other Illustrated Editions of Barnaby Rudge
- Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (homepage)
- George Cattermole, 1800-1868; A Brief Biography
- Phiz's Original Serial Illustrations (1841)
- Cattermole and Phiz: The First Illustrators — A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley's six illustrations (1865 and 1888)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition illustrations (1867)
- Fred Barnard's 46 illustrations for the Household Edition (1874)
- A. H. Buckland's 6 illustrations for the Collins' Clear-type Pocket Edition (1900)
- Harry Furniss's 28 illustrations for The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz') and George Cattermole. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury & Evans, 1849.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
Hammerton, J. A. "Ch. XIV. Barnaby Rudge." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition, illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. 213-55.
Vann, J. Don. "Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February 1841-27 November 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 65-6.
Created 4 January 2006
Last modified 15 December 2020